Article

Teaching of Psychology
1-6
Milgram’s Obedience Study: A Contentious ª The Author(s) 2016
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Richard A. Griggs1

Abstract
Given the many older criticisms of Milgram’s obedience study and the more damning recent criticisms based on analyses of
materials available in the Milgram archives at Yale, this study has become a contentious classic. Yet, current social psychology
textbooks present it as an uncontentious classic, with no coverage of the recent criticisms and little coverage of the older ones.
Also, none of the texts present any coverage of the recent reinterpretation of the study’s findings in terms of engaged followership
based on participants’ acceptance of the experimenter’s scientific goals. Hence, the present article provides sources for sum-
maries of the criticisms and a summary of the reinterpretation and its supporting empirical research for teachers who want to
incorporate coverage into their courses.

Keywords
Milgram’s obedience study, engaged followership, social identity theory

Perhaps, the most famous study in psychology is Milgram’s
controversial obedience study (Milgram, 1963, 1964, 1965a,
1965b, 1974). Although this set of experiments is more than
50 years old, the debate about the ethical, methodological, and
theoretical issues of these experiments shows no signs of abat-
ing (Gibson, 2013b). Much of the recent interest in the Milgram
experiments is concerned with new criticisms of both
Milgram’s experiments and his reporting of them, such as (a)
his misrepresentation in publications of the debriefing process
in which roughly 600 participants were not told that the learner
was not actually shocked until about a year later (Nicholson,
2011; Perry, 2013), (b) the unreported improvisational, off
script extended prodding of participant teachers by the experi-
menter that varied across experiments and participants within
an experiment (Gibson, 2013a, 2013b; Perry, 2013; Russell,
2009), (c) Milgram’s own unpublished analysis that shows
that the majority of the participants disobeyed when they
thought that the learner was actually being shocked (Perry,
2013), (d) Milgram’s selective reporting of the 23 experi-
ments that he actually conducted (Perry, 2013; Russell,
2014),1 and (e) Milgram’s clear use of selective editing to
foreground obedience and downplay resistance in his film
Obedience (Millard, 2011, 2014; Perry, 2015). These new
criticisms mainly stem from analyses of the materials in the
Milgram archives at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library
related to the obedience experiments. The archival materials
include audio recordings of the actual experiments; transcripts
of participants’ conversations with the psychiatrist; partici-
pants’ questionnaire responses; and the notes, documentation,
and correspondence accumulated during the obedience
experiments.
This recent Milgram controversy has led Tavris (2014) to
label Milgram’s study a ‘‘contentious classic’’ and to recom-
mend that it be taught as such with discussion of its flaws and
shortcomings. Teaching Milgram’s study as a contentious clas-
sic, however, would be difficult for teachers because currently,
introductory social psychology textbooks present it as an
uncontentious classic. Indeed, in a review of the latest editions
of 10 introductory social psychology textbooks, Griggs and
Whitehead (2015b) found that none of the recent criticisms
were covered, even in the texts published in 2015.2 Not even
the fact that Milgram had misrepresented the debriefing pro-
cess in his publications was mentioned in any of the textbooks.
Griggs and Whitehead (2015a), using the same sample of
textbooks, similarly found very sparse coverage of older criti-
cisms—external validity and generalization concerns (e.g.,
Darley, 1995; Orne & Holland, 1968) and methodological
problems, such as the presence of demand characteristics
(e.g., Mixon, 1972; Orne & Evans, 1965). Griggs and White-
head also noted that when these criticisms are discussed, it is in
a Milgram-friendly manner (e.g., one text used the Milgram
study as an example of where poor external validity is not
always bad). Ethical issues with Milgram’s study, though, are
discussed in almost all social textbooks. However, when they
are introduced, it is typically in a general manner without citing
1
Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Richard A. Griggs, 4515 Breakwater Row West, Jacksonville, FL 32225, USA.
Email: rgriggs@ufl.edu

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2 Teaching of Psychology
references for specific ethical criticisms (only 3 of the 10 texts
cited a specific reference, and it was Baumrind, 1964, with one
also citing Baumrind, 1985), and these discussions usually
come to a Milgram-friendly conclusion, such as that the knowl-
edge-gained benefit outweighed the possible participant cost.
This was expected because past research on social psychology
textbooks has found that these texts have moved from coverage
of specific ethical criticisms to more general, Milgram-friendly
coverage of ethical issues toward the end of the last century
(Stam, Lubek, & Radke, 1998). Hence, at present, given the
tendentious textbook coverage, teachers who are interested in
teaching the Milgram study as a contentious classic would have
to research the many old and new criticisms of the study on
their own. Griggs and Whitehead (2015a, 2015b), however,
provided summaries of the old and new criticisms, respec-
tively, and thus comprise an excellent starting point for such
research. Nevertheless, I am concerned that teachers will not
incorporate these criticisms in their courses because they are
not covered in the textbooks that they are using. Supporting this
point, Bartels, Milovich, and Moussier (2016) found that intro-
ductory psychology teachers tended not to cover the many
criticisms of the Stanford prison experiment in their courses,
paralleling the lack of such coverage in introductory psychol-
ogy textbooks (Griggs, 2014).
Tavris (2014) also argued that as teachers we need to find
new ways of persuading students that, despite their shortcom-
ings, the findings of these older contentious classic studies like
Milgram’s study apply to them, because today’s students are
just as eager as students decades ago ‘‘to reject unflattering or
counterintuitive portrayals of humanity.’’ She did not, how-
ever, mention that some social psychology researchers have
recently found a new way to explain Milgram’s findings, and
it does not involve obedience to authority. Thus, if teachers are
going to find ways to persuade students of the importance of
Milgram’s findings, they would need to be aware of this rein-
terpretation of those findings. Briefly, this reinterpretation
argues that the experiments were not about obedience to
authority but rather engaged followership based on identifica-
tion with the experimenter and his scientific project (Haslam,
Reicher, & Birney, 2014, 2016; Haslam, Reicher, & Millard,
2015; Haslam, Reicher, Millard, & McDonald, 2015; Reicher
& Haslam, 2011; Reicher, Haslam, & Miller, 2014; Reicher,
Haslam, & Smith, 2012). The details of this new interpretation
and the empirical evidence gathered to test it will be presented
later.
Tavris is not the only one who does not mention this rein-
terpretation of Milgram’s findings. Griggs and Whitehead
(2015b) found that coverage of this reinterpretation of
Milgram’s findings was nonexistent in current introductory
social psychology textbooks, even though relevant articles
appeared as early as 2011. Given this lack of coverage in the
current texts and the fact these texts have a revision cycle of at
least 3 years, the purpose of the present article is to provide a
brief summary of this recent reinterpretation of Milgram’s find-
ings for teachers who may want to incorporate it into their class
presentations and discussions of Milgram’s study. The story of
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this reinterpretation begins with Burger’s (2009) partial repli-
cation of Milgram’s baseline experiment, which I discuss next.
From Replication to Reinterpretation
Burger (2009) conducted a partial replication of Milgram’s
new baseline experiment at Santa Clara University.3 His parti-
cipants were men and women who responded to newspaper
advertisements and flyers that had been distributed locally.
Their ages ranged from 20 to 81 years, with a mean age of
42.9 years. Obviously, some changes to ensure the welfare of
the participants were necessary to obtain permission to run the
study (Burger, 2007). The main procedural change was that
once participants pressed the 150-volt switch and started to
read the next test item, the experiment was stopped. The
150-volt point was chosen because in Milgram’s original
research, once participants went past 150 volts, the vast
majority continued to obey up to the highest shock level. In a
meta-analysis of data from eight of Milgram’s obedience
experiments, Packer (2008) also found that the 150-volt point
was the voltage level at which participants were most likely to
disobey the experimenter, probably due to the fact that it was at
the 150-volt point that the learner began to complain verbally.
Thus, in Burger’s study, it was a reasonable assumption that
the percentage of participants that go past 150 volts was a good
estimate of the percentage that would go to the end of the shock
generator. Of course, the experimenter also ended the experi-
ment when a participant refused to continue after hearing all
four of the experimenter’s prods.
Almost 67% of the men and about 73% of the women that
Burger (2009) studied continued to 150 volts. Although these
percentages have to be adjusted down slightly because not
every participant in Milgram’s study who went past 150 volts
maximally obeyed, these results are very close to Milgram’s
finding of 65% obedience for both men and women in the
baseline condition. Even with such adjustments, Burger’s find-
ings indicate that people reacted in this laboratory obedience
situation today much as they did almost 50 years ago in Milgram’s
original study. Burger, however, quizzically later concluded
that his participants were not displaying obedience (see Bur-
ger, Girgis, & Manning, 2011). Why did he conclude this?
Burger, Girgis, and Manning (2011) pointed out that only
the fourth prod, ‘‘You have no other choice, you must go on,’’
truly constitutes an order, and in an analysis of the participants’
comments and responses in Burger’s earlier partial replication
study, they found that this prod did not elicit any obedience
because not a single participant continued after receiving it. In
general, the more a prod resembled an order, the less likely it
was followed (see Study 2), leading Burger et al. to surmise that
the participants’ response pattern was the opposite to what
would be expected if they had been following orders. They
concluded that ‘‘If the participants were not following orders,
then alternate interpretations of Milgram’s findings should be
explored . . . . Moreover, the way the research is portrayed to
students, scholars, and the public may need to be reassessed’’
(p. 6).
Griggs
Burger et al.’s (2011) results beg the question as to whether
this pattern of participant responding also occurred in Mil-
gram’s experiments. Fortunately, Gibson (2013a) performed
a rhetorical analysis of the archival-recorded interactions
between the experimenter and participants in two of Milgram’s
experiments, providing us with an answer to this question. It is
important to remember that analyses of the audiotapes of the
experimental sessions have revealed that the experimenter did
not follow the standard prod protocol that Milgram described in
his publications about the experiments (Perry, 2013). He went
off script and improvised prods. Thus, these improvised prods
have to be analyzed with respect to their order-like nature.
Consistent with Burger et al.’s conclusion, Gibson’s analysis
revealed that the experimenter’s most order-like prods were
overwhelmingly resisted by the participants. Gibson (p. 303)
concluded that his analysis ‘‘points to the intriguing possibility
that the studies ultimately may have little to do with obedience
as conventionally understood.’’ Thus, rather than showing that
Milgram’s participants were obeying the orders of those in
authority, Milgram’s experiments seem to provide evidence
of the opposite—namely, that orders from an authority lead
to disobedience and that the ‘‘obedience’’ that Milgram
observed was due to other factors.
From Obedience to Identification
In accordance with Burger et al.’s (2011) conclusion that alter-
nate interpretations of Milgram’s findings should be consid-
ered, Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher have proposed that
Milgram’s ‘‘obedient’’ participants were motivated not by
orders but by appeals to science and that their behavior needs
to be reconceptualized as an act of ‘‘engaged followership’’
with the experimenter and the scientific community and not
as a product of blind obedience to authority (e.g., Haslam
et al., 2014; Haslam, Reicher, Millard, & McDonald, 2015).4
In these terms, the level of obedience in each of Milgram’s
various experiments is predicated upon the extent of the parti-
cipants’ acceptance of the experimenter’s scientific goals.
Haslam and Reicher argued that this leadership induced parti-
cipants to identify with the experimenter and become engaged
in helping him achieve his scientific goals. They further pro-
posed that the participants in Milgram’s experiments may,
under certain conditions, also have opted to identify with the
learner and not the experimenter, leading them to ‘‘disobedi-
ent’’ behavior. Hence, the perturbing process of deciding which
identification to make led to the anxiety and upset witnessed in
Milgram’s participants.
Which identification participants tended to make was deter-
mined mainly by which identification a particular experimental
setting favored. In line with this analysis, Haslam and Reicher
noted that one can explain the variance observed for the obe-
dience rate in Milgram’s numerous experiments (from 0% to
100%) by examining how the situational factors in each experi-
ment favor each type of identification (i.e., the relative extent
of identification with the experimenter vs. identification with
the learner). In fact, Reicher, Haslam, and Smith (2012) have
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3
shown that estimations of the levels of identification with the
experimenter and with the learner made by both expert social
psychologists and nonexpert college students for Milgram’s
descriptions of 15 of his experiments are strong significant
predictors of the level of obedience found in each of the experi-
ments. In agreement with the engaged-followership explana-
tion, identification with the experimenter was a strong positive
predictor of the level of obedience observed, and identification
with the learner was a strong negative predictor of the level of
obedience observed.
Haslam, Reicher, and Birney (2014) pointed out that there
was a confound in Milgram’s study and Burger’s (2009) partial
replication between the content of the four prods and the order
in which they were presented such that it is unclear whether the
observed resistance to the fourth prod was the consequence of it
being an order or that it was issued after the other three prods
had already been resisted. Possibly, the participants were just
tired of being prodded or were already committed to resisting
when the fourth prod was given. They argued that the second
prod, ‘‘The experiment requires that you continue,’’ is the one
that relates most to their engaged-followership proposed expla-
nation because it indicates that continuing is essential to the
success of the experiment and hence, science. In a very cleverly
designed analogue of Milgram’s basic procedure with 30 steps,
each involving progressively more toxic responses, Haslam
et al. demonstrated that continuation and completion of an
objectionable task was positively predicted by the extent to
which prods appealed to scientific goals but not by the extent
that the prods were seen as orders. In agreement with Burger
et al.’s (2011) finding, the participants were more inclined to
disobey an order than to follow it.
Haslam et al. (2015) used immersive digital realism (IDR)
to restage and reexamine Milgram’s new baseline experiment
(see Note 1) and four more of his obedience experiments.5 The
IDR methodology circumvents the ethical barriers to conduct-
ing obedience research using Milgram’s original procedure
with volunteer participants by using professional actors who
deeply immerse themselves into portraying fictional charac-
ters. Because the actors can differentiate their characters’ beha-
vior from their own, ethical issues are avoided. Kathryn
Millard, the third author of the study, had decided to use the
IDR methodology to recreate Milgram’s experiments as part of
a documentary film that she was making on Milgram’s obedi-
ence study. The first two authors, Alex Haslam and Stephen
Reicher, viewed Millard’s recreation of the Milgram experi-
ments as an opportunity to test their engaged-followership
reinterpretation. Hence, they observed the shooting of the
experiments and collected and analyzed the data from the
filmed experiments to determine whether these data fit their
reinterpretation.
Functioning as filmmaker and director, Millard worked with
the actors to develop their characters before the filming. In this
case, their characters were participants in Milgram’s experi-
ments being restaged and filmed in a faithful reproduction of
the original laboratory environment, including the ominous
shock generator. Millard, however, only informed the actors
4 Teaching of Psychology
that their characters would be participants in a social psychol-
ogy experiment in the film. They were not given any informa-
tion about the nature or design of the Milgram experiments.
Following the digital filming of each restaged experiment, the
actors were thoroughly debriefed and provided with complete
information about the study and its aims. Postexperimental
interviews were also conducted and used to assess the partici-
pants’ relative identification with the experimenter and the
learner in each experiment. For ethical reasons, Millard con-
ducted follow-up interviews with the actors about their experi-
ences a year later.
Validating the use of the IDR, a strong positive correlation
was found between the maximum level of shock administered
in these restaged experiments and the mean maximum shock
administered in the corresponding original Milgram experi-
ments. Consistent with the engaged-followership explanation,
relative identification with the experimenter versus the learner
as assessed in the interviews was also a good predictor of the
maximum shock that participants administered in each experi-
ment. In addition, as Burger et al. (2011) had found, there was
near universal refusal by participants to continue after being
given Milgram’s fourth prod (‘‘You have no other choice, you
must continue’’).
Interestingly, Haslam and Reicher’s engaged-followership
proposal not only provides an explanation of both Milgram’s
various experimental findings and Burger’s replication results
but also provides an explanation of the discrepancy between
the extremely stressful and aversive experimental experience
of the participants and the positive feelings toward the experi-
ments that they expressed in their questionnaire responses
about their participation. In an analysis of the Yale archival
questionnaire data from Milgram’s study, Haslam, Reicher,
Millard, and McDonald (2015) showed that the participants
were engaged with the science of the experiments and that they
saw science—especially science at prestigious Yale Univer-
sity—as a ‘‘social good,’’ and being associated with this made
them feel good. It is critical, as Haslam et al. pointed out, to
realize that the participants’ questionnaire responses were
made quite some time after their participation, so the stressful
experimental situation that they experienced almost a year ear-
lier was in the past, and the debriefing report that accompanied
the questionnaire reminded them only of the scientific goals of
the study. In sum, led by the report’s reminder of the study’s
lofty scientific purpose, the participants felt that they had con-
tributed to scientific progress, and this gave meaning to their
participation, transforming the unpleasant, stressful experimen-
tal experience into something to feel good about when they
completed the postexperimental questionnaire.
Epilogue
Why would social psychology textbooks present such tenden-
tious coverage of Milgram’s obedience studies, providing little,
if any, coverage of the myriad criticisms of the study and the
recent reinterpretation of the study’s findings? To explain their
findings of an analysis of social psychology textbooks from
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1965 to 1995, Stam, Lubek, and Radke (1998) provide a ten-
able answer to this question. According to Stam et al., social
psychology textbooks ‘‘serve a knowledge-conserving function
for the discipline . . . there is a great deal of temporal consis-
tency, a shared core of material and authors to be discussed,
and the adoption of a homogeneous knowledge-conserving
perspective’’ (p. 156). They propose that as part of this
knowledge-conserving function, a ‘‘standard view’’ of the obe-
dience experiments in social psychology textbooks has devel-
oped (see also Griggs & Whitehead, 2015b). According to
Stam et al. (pp. 162–163, italics in original),
The obedience research is no longer a case study of the importance
of obedience to authority but an important promoter of the impor-
tance and necessity of experimental social psychological research.
The visibility of the research has become a token: by its critics, a
token of the vulnerability of the discipline; by proponents, a token
of its strengths. Within the discipline, Milgram is valorized for his
contributions but the recurring appearance of discussions of meth-
odology and ethics indicate that in order to valorize Milgram’s
studies social psychologists must continually engage in damage
control. It is this combined valorization/defensiveness that we take
to be the standard view of the obedience experiments.
If indeed this is the case, then coverage of Milgram’s obe-
dience study as a contentious classic that has been reinterpreted
as a demonstration of engaged followership and not obedience
is unlikely to materialize in future editions of introductory
social psychology textbooks. The next set of editions of intro-
ductory social psychology textbooks will tell the story. Hope-
fully, it’s not the standard one.6
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. Because one of Milgram’s unreported experiments (the last one in
the study, the relationship experiment) may be the most ethically
questionable experiment that he conducted, I briefly summarize it
here for teachers who may want to incorporate it into their class
discussions of the ethical issues posed by Milgram’s study. This
experiment was a second one that Milgram conducted in Bridge-
port, CT, and was conducted in the same office building but was
procedurally different. Instead of participants as teachers and a
confederate as the learner, 20 pairs of males who were related in
some way (relatives, friends, or neighbors) served as participants,
with one serving as teacher and the other as learner. After the
learner was strapped in and the teacher and experimenter left the
room, Milgram entered the room with the learner and explained
privately to him about the experimental ruse and coached him on
how to vocalize in response to the supposed shocks. Rochat and
Griggs
Blass (2014, p. 457) pointed out another difference between these
two Bridgeport experiments. In the reported experiment with unre-
lated participants, the learner’s protests were aimed at the experi-
menter. In the unreported one with related participants, the
learner’s protests were aimed at the teacher. What happened? Did
teachers obey and inflict pain on a relative, friend, or neighbor? No,
the vast majority did not. Milgram found an 85% rate of disobe-
dience, one of the highest rates in all of his experiments. Although
Milgram may not have reported this experiment because of this
high rate of disobedience, it seems more likely that it was because
the experiment itself would be difficult to defend ethically given
that the teacher was asked to shock a friend or relative, especially
given the ethical firestorm that had already erupted after Milgram’s
first publication on the obedience study, Milgram (1963). More
details about this experiment can be found in Perry (2013; see
Chapter 6) and Rochat and Modigliani (1997).
2. According to Griggs and Whitehead (2015b), this set of 10 intro-
ductory social psychology textbooks essentially comprise the pop-
ulation of American introductory social psychology textbooks if
briefer versions of two of these texts and Aronson’s briefer, more
trade-like The Social Animal (2012) are excluded.
3. Milgram actually conducted two baseline experiments. In the orig-
inal baseline experiment (the voice-feedback experiment), the
teacher and learner are in separate rooms, but the teacher can hear
the learner’s escalated screams and protests and his refusal to con-
tinue at higher voltage levels and the learner does not respond after
330 volts. Milgram used the results of this experiment as the base-
line for two more experiments. Because he had to change the
laboratory in which he was conducting the obedience study after
these experiments, Milgram felt it necessary to conduct a replica-
tion experiment of the baseline experiment to determine whether
the new laboratory, which was much more modest and in the base-
ment of the building, had any impact on his findings (Milgram,
1974, p. 55). The second baseline experiment was the same as the
first but with one small change to the script—the learner mentions a
slight heart condition before the experiment and again during his
protests. Milgram (1974) thought that this heart problem might
provide additional justification for disobeying (p. 55). It did not.
He replicated his earlier 62.5% finding—65% administered the
maximum shock. He then used this experiment (the new baseline
experiment) for the remaining 18 experiments that he conducted.
Burger’s (2009) experiment was a partial replication of Milgram’s
new baseline experiment (Jerry M. Burger, personal communica-
tion, April 28, 2016).
4. Haslam et al. (2014) examined Milgram’s experimental notes that
are available in the Milgram archives at Yale and found that he had
actually questioned the terminology that he was using to describe
the behavior of the participants in his obedience experiments.
Milgram was not sure whether their behavior constituted coopera-
tion with authority or obedience to authority and pondered the
difference between the two. His answer was: ‘‘Cooperation implies
a certain willingness to perform the action or help out, a certain
internal desire to assist, while obedience implies an action that is
totally in response to a command, with no motivational support
from inner sources’’ (Milgram Archives, Yale University Library,
Box 46). Obviously, Milgram decided to describe the participants’
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5
behavior as obedience, but his thoughts about it as cooperation are
congruent with Haslam and Reicher’s reinterpretation in terms of
engaged followership to help the experimenter achieve his scien-
tific goals.
5. This study was a collaborative effort across film and psychology.
The immersive digital realism performance methodology used to
restage Milgram’s experiments was devised by the third author,
Kathryn Millard, a noted filmmaker, essayist, and academic.
Millard (2012) had initially used this methodology to restage
Gamson’s famous sociological research into encounters with an
unjust authority (Gamson, Fireman, & Rytina, 1982). The filmed
reenactments of Milgram’s experiments are featured in her new
documentary film on Milgram’s obedience study, Shock Room.
The first and second authors of the study, Alex Haslam and Stephen
Reicher, appear in the film and describe their engaged-followership
reinterpretation of Milgram’s obedience findings. The film makes
clear that when confronted with the fourth prod (the only outright
order of the four prods), participants disobey, demonstrating our
ability to choose freely. For more information about Shock Room,
go to http://shockroomfilm.com.
6. New editions of 2 of the 10 introductory psychology textbooks
were recently published—Aronson, Wilson, Akert, and Sommers
(2016) and Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, and Nisbett (2016). Unsurpris-
ingly, neither text mentioned Haslam and Reicher’s engaged-
followership reinterpretation of Milgram’s findings. One of the two
texts, however, did include one Milgram-friendly sentence on the
recent criticisms. This sentence points out that recent criticisms
have focused on disturbing allegations that Milgram misrepre-
sented his debriefing process in his publications and that many
subjects left the experiment without being told that the learner was
not actually shocked. These criticisms, however, are not allegations
but rather assertions by more than one researcher supported by
factual evidence in the Milgram archives at Yale. This fact and the
details of the criticisms are not provided. Hence, the standard view
persists in these new editions of 2 of the 10 introductory social
psychology texts examined by Griggs and Whitehead (2015a, b).
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